The Uncool Instagram Follow Unfollow Trick Explained

Please note that I may earn a small commission from purchases made through product links in this article at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products that I have personally used and tested.

If you’re on Instagram, then most likely you are familiar with the follow unfollow Instagram trick. It’s a simple method to not only increase your followers count, but to also lower the amount of people you follow. The bigger this gap, the better.

The Instagram follow/unfollow strategy encapsulates everything I dislike about social media. But don’t get me wrong. I don’t see social media as something evil.

Social media has its place, it’s just that it has evolved in a way that not many would have anticipated 15 years ago.

How Does the Follow Unfollow Instagram Trick Work?

You are happy, flattered even, so you follow them back because you’re a nice person.

They unfollow you a few days or a week or so later.

They hope you won’t notice they have unfollowed you.

That’s it. Definitely not rocket science material, which is probably why it’s such a widely used strategy. But it’s a very uncool strategy that you should not be using, ever. Unless you want to be an uncool person.

This trick is very much like behaving like that fake friend that is only a friend when they want something from you. Seriously uncool. When you’re guilty of doing this, just ask yourself what kind of person you are and what kind of person you want to be.

The Psychology Behind the Follow/Unfollow Method

Over the years, social media has evolved into a somewhat fake and plastic environment, driven by hierarchy and status. The more likes and the more followers, the better. Because it “looks good”. And that’s exactly what drives the annoying follow/unfollow strategy on Instagram.

Not only are people who are guilty of implementing that strategy trying to artificially increase their followers, they are also trying to decrease the amount of Instagram accounts they follow themselves. Yuck.

They do this because it gives them more status, authority. It places them higher up the social media hierarchy. It makes them look good, more powerful, more influential.

You know, people have always had a thing with hierarchy and status. Or should I say, power. People naturally enjoy having power. It’s in our blood. It’s like being back in high school. The more “friends” you have, the more popular you are.

And this is reflected in how some of us behave on Instagram. If we have a good amount of followers and only a handful of followed accounts, that makes us look more powerful and more influential. It gives us a sense of status. And people tend to like that.

How to Detect Follow/Unfollow Offenders?

It’s not difficult to recognize Instagram accounts that are guilty of executing the follow/unfollow method on Instagram. But it’s mostly the Instagram newbies who fall victim to it.

Here are a few red flags to look out for:

Their followers count is much higher than their following count.

Their followers count is much higher than your followers count. This is because offenders love targeting smaller Instagram accounts.

Their niche is totally unrelated to your niche.

How to Deal with Them?

If you’re almost certain that a new follower will be unfollowing you a couple of days later, simply ignore them. Don’t follow them back. Don’t increase their followers tally. The more you use Instagram, they better you will be able to recognize these offenders.

If you’re not 100% sure, by all means follow them back. Then a week later you can check whether they are still following you. You can use (paid) apps for this, or alternatively you can do it manually. Simply keep a list of suspects and once a week you can go through that list and cull the ones that are no longer following you.

This may sound like a lot of work, but it’s not. Over time you’ll get better at recognizing offenders and suspects so this cleansing process won’t take up much of your time. And it’s actually quite satisfying, getting rid of Instagram follow/unfollow offenders.

Need help managing your Instagram account and grow your following in an ethical and effective way? Tailwind is an app that helps with scheduling posts and finding the best hashtags. It also offers great analytics and monitoring tools.

What’s more, Tailwind is an official Instagram Partner, badged for Community Management. In other words, Tailwind is legit and doesn’t get you banned.

You can try Tailwind out for free. And, if you like it, you can go for a paid plan which is only $9.99 per month. Cancel anytime, nothing to lose.

4 Reasons to Stop the Follow Unfollow Trick Now

A lot of Instagram users implement the follow unfollow Instagram trick, desperately trying to increase their audience. But this trick can come back and haunt you.

So here are 4 good reasons why you should stop the follow unfollow Instagram trick immediately.

1. Your credibility is at risk

People are getting smarter, Instagram is getting smarter. The follow unfollow method is a dirty trick, and more and more people are picking up on this. Ask yourself, how do you want others to perceive you and your brand?

2. It’s disrespectful to other bloggers

Social media should really be about networking and supporting and engaging with each other. By following and unfollowing people, you’re being very anti-social. And you’re also participating in creating an artificial world that social media has now become.

If you don’t want to be disrespectful in real life, then don’t be disrespectful on social media either.

3. You’re not really growing much

Yes, you may be able to grow your Instagram followers by using the follow unfollow trick, but you’re definitely not growing your engaged audience.

You may be able to grow your Instagram followers by using the follow unfollow trick, but the engagement on your account will tank.Click to Tweet

A lot of the followers you’ve gained with this method don’t actually care too much about you or your brand, and won’t be engaging with your content either. So then it’s really just a numbers game.

4. It shows your true colors

By behaving this way on Instagram, you’re basically showing the world what kind of person you are. Unreliable? Untrustworthy? Fake? Hidden agendas? You name it.

To give you a concrete example, a social media crazy real estate agent operating in my area recently followed one of my Instagram accounts. Looking at her account, I classified her as a suspect. But I gave her the benefit of the doubt and followed her back.

And guess what? A few days later she was gone. She unfollowed me. Of course she did, because she’s a social media fanatic who loves attention and status, and of course doesn’t care about me.

So when it’s time for me to sell my house, I will not be hiring her as my agent. She probably won’t care though, but that’s not the point. The point is that she puts her reputation on the line with that silly follow unfollow Instagram trick.

Final Thoughts – What to Do Instead?

From a personal as well as from a business perspective, I prefer to use social media the way it should be used. I try to share useful or interesting stuff that I hope the public will appreciate.

And when they do, they might just press the like button, they’ll follow me, they’ll comment, and so forth. Over time my audience will grow, engagement will increase, more people will become aware of the brand I am representing. In short, I try to keep things genuine.

And you know what? Keeping it real actually works. By all means, go ahead and follow people and businesses, but don’t cull them a few days later. Stay connected and engage with all the content they share on their social media accounts. That is how you will be able to grow your Instagram followers organically.

Yes, this is a potentially very slow process. Sadly, in the world of social media, keeping it real requires patience. But at least you can take pride in being genuine and your growing audience will love you for it.

Why don’t Instagram show us who unfollows us? I wish Instagram would show us who unfollows us, and that would probably stop all the fake followers who play the follow unfollow game. It is so annoying and is what takes the fun out of Instagram. I can’t tell who is fake or real so if I get followed without the follower looking at my pictures I just ignore them.

I agree Jack, it’s very annoying. I thought the same thing, why can’t Instagram show us who unfollows us? I guess that could actually make matters worse, and more people would start unfollowing others. Maybe Instagram will come up with a solution to this problem eventually.

@Dupatta. My aim is simply to show some interesting stuff… for my own pleasure, and for my children, family, relatives, friends, etc., wether they «like» it or not! My «ego» doesn’t need an army of followers, and I don’t have the desire to be a powerful and important guy on Instagram. Why should I? What does it mean to be successful with a lot of unknown, perhaps even not really interested people? Why wasting my time worried about anonymous people «hunting» likes, and begging for them? – Have fun and take it easy.

Follow/unfollow isn’t used to pretend to like someone’s feed so they feel obliged to follow you back. It’s just a means of putting a notification onto someone’s phone. They see your content, if they like it then they follow if not then they don’t.

It’s playing Instagram’s system, it’s not playing people’s emotions. Well it shouldn’t be, but let’s get this straight, if you follow someone back just because they follow you, then who’s the one being fake here? “I like you, because you like me”, that’s uncool.

Also you mention niche, anyone with any sense would only use this method with relevant accounts. Accounts that actually may be happy you’ve shown yourself to them.

Great article. Like you say though it’s laborious (I have 4000 such types) to remove follow/unfollowers, it’s also very satisfying. The more posing, pouting and product-placing they are the better! These people ruin Instagram.

Hi there, I’m AJ, a corporate IT nerd turned digital marketing pro, specializing in SEO and content strategy. I am using Blog Pioneer to help you achieve success online by sharing some of my knowledge and experience.Read more…